On the Coldest Nights
by Rynna Aurelia
Summary: Love is complicated in the best of times and sunniest of days. It's lately been the worst of times and coldest of nights for Q.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing, absolutely nothing. Y'hear me, copyright people?

 **Warnings:** Self-edited, swearing, un-Britpicked, Hanahaki, canon-typical violence and death.

* * *

 _"And if love be madness, may I never find sanity again."_

 _-John Mark Green  
_

* * *

Q had not been surprised when it had begun. He had been _glad_ , as a matter of fact. Glad he had listened to the nurse from all those years ago, glad he had proven to be so similar to his brothers, so _unlike_ everyone else. His intellectual prowess and reasoning abilities had proven to be his saving grace countless times, after all. _(But if he were being perfectly honest, Q had also rather suspected they would prove to be his downfall—if his emotions didn't kill him first)_

Above all, he was glad to have known what was happening _—_ what, Q supposed, had been in store for him the moment he had laid eyes on James Bond.

Ignorance was bliss only for fools and little children; but knowledge, knowledge retained the same bitter, comforting stab regardless of what category Q had fallen into in the past. It was always comforting, the new awareness, because it meant Q always had another piece of the puzzle, was one step closer and ahead of everyone else _—_ and there was always someone else.

As for the constant of bitterness _—_ well, Q wasn't completely oblivious to the full consequences of making his kind of mistakes; or, more pertinently, of how utterly _unreturned_ his feelings were.

No matter how well compartmentalized, being in love with someone who didn't love you back still bloody well _hurt_ sometimes.

However, with such compartmentalization, along with being a cagey bastard by nature and career, came certain small mercies; when he coughed up those few pale yellow daffodil petals, months after the mess known as Skyfall, Q had only let loose a small, sad smile in the privacy of his office, the rest of Q-Branch long since gone home for the night.

 _I can spare them this tragedy, if nothing else._

Cases had been uncommon in the last fifty years, but when Hanahaki disease appeared in a bloodline, it invariably still left a ghastly, bloody trail; his father had been dead before Q was two, for love his wife could not give him, one of his brothers almost gone as well, nearly five months spent gone over his roommate, and the other choosing the surgery when Q was barely sixteen.

Mycroft Holmes had never been the same.

 _It happened, sometimes,_ the doctors had said, as not-yet-Q, still all gawky limbs, wild dark hair, spots, and too-bright eyes, gazed at his dead-eyed brother, who blankly stared back, nothing but cold calculation to be found, no matter how hard he had looked, no matter how hard the precocious teenager had tried.

 _When they removed the roots, occasionally,_ one nurse had explained kindly to him in the waiting room afterward, _a person sometimes simply wasn't the same._ They weren't sure how it happened, or why it happened, despite all the research poured into it, and they simply could not isolate the cause or contributing factors.

 _It was simply the way of it,_ she had at last said softly, the compassionate condescension making him yearn to scream, to shake the well-meaning woman, to make her see.

 _Illogical,_ he had not screamed. _My brother no longer recognizes his own family. Can't you tell **why?**_

 _Ignorant,_ he barely kept from naming them _. When he does not recognize me, his **brother** , her, his **mother** , how can you not figure it out? _

_Love is not that **simple** ,_ much-closer-to-being-Q had muttered later as he hunted down the only functioning family he had left, punching in bits of code to his computer. _How can they **possibly**_ _ ** _-_**_

They hadn't understood, for all of their well-meaning intentions. No one had then _—_ with the exception of Mycroft, and Mycroft was _gone_ _—_ and few did now.

 _And how could they? How could anyone, anyone at all, truly understand it, until they saw the havoc wreaked, until they saw how destructive it was by nature?  
_

He rather suspected the very results of that kind of devastation was what had drawn Q to him in the first place. Vesper Lynd had died with hyacinth between her lips and far too much love in her heart, and it had utterly destroyed Bond.

Love for Queen and Country, love for family, love for friends, love for your other half _—_ the concept, much as he hated to admit such a cliché sentiment, had defined his life, in all of its permutations.

In the manner of his life, and in the manner of his death.

But, it all drew back to it being for the better that he had not been surprised, Q thought as his head snapped back from another punch, blood slowly dripping down his chin, glasses long since broken and lost, _because if I had been, my death would have been that much more painful._

After all, dying for James Bond in the line of duty, long resigned to the depth and futility of one's affections for said agent, was one thing.

Dying _for_ him, in the name of said doomed affections, would have been quite another.

 _Thankfully,_ Q mused while SPECTRE's interrogators rounded on him, sneering as Q coughed forth another round of bloodstained white carnations, _he'd_ _always been the practical sort._

Choosing death over Bond _and_ MI6's entire active agent roster was much preferable, and a more dignified option.

* * *

Q never cried after Boothroyd's death.

Not out of lack of feeling, or some sick glee at his mentor's death _—_ because that was what the previous Quartermaster had been, saving him from the short brutal life of a mercenary hacker, teaching him how to fight and love and kill for your home while still retaining some semblance of your own soul, believing in Q's own broken one until the end _—_ but because there had simply been too much to get done in Q-Branch.

Grief was exhausting, and Skyfall had been a proper clusterfuck for what was left of MI6 to sort out. Nearly three weeks passed before Q was able to finally go home to his flat and cats.

When he had woken up ten hours later, it had been approximately one and half cups of tea to realize he was not, in fact, in a dream.

Vauxhall Cross had been destroyed.

M was dead.

Major Boothroyd was dead.

Moneypenny, through some rare kind of a miracle, was not dead.

Half of Q-Branch was also dead.

Q was now _Q._

He'd been R before, and before that, a rotation of aliases that had given HR and Tanner fits. But neither had been _him_. Quartermaster already sat differently, he had realized, like a well-loved coat he'd at last found again.

And, of course, he'd had the pleasure of working with the current 007.

It had, Q reflected, been an electrifying experience. James Bond, contrary to some of the more colorful rumors floating around MI6, was far from an idiot _—_ even if his sheer recklessness and disregard for himself and his equipment made Q want to shoot Bond himself.

The fact that Moneypenny had not been exaggerating about how... _much_ James Bond was didn't hurt, either. Since his arrest and subsequent recruitment into MI6 two years ago, relationships and one-night stands had been off the table, and flirting with the accountants in Finance only went so far. Bond was _interesting,_ and cut a fine figure in his suits.

Not that Q would ever admit it to anyone _—_ especially Moneypenny.

Besides, any fascination and curiosity with the man was only superficial.

* * *

The professional curiosity lasted exactly as long as it took for the agent to drop his Walther into a vat of perfume laced with hydrochloric acid, with what appeared to be a pseudo-ninja guard on his tail.

Then, Q began to contemplate how much paperwork he would have to fill out if he gave Bond nothing but a bubble gun and glittery plastic cufflinks on his next mission into a war zone.

"007, your equipment?'

"Surely, you read my report, Q. It was a tragic but necessary loss."

 _"Tragic but necessary?_ Much as you and 006 would like to believe, I was not in fact born yesterday-"

"If you weren't born yesterday, does that mean you're old enough to have dinner with me after all?"

"Don't change the subject. I had visuals the entire time, 007. You deliberately dropped your Walther PPK into a container filled with a metal-eating chemical with eight separate guards right on top of you."

"Is that a yes or a no? I must know ahead of time, if you want good reservations."

"Absolutely not! Answer the question!"

"You are cruel in your refusal, Quartermaster. Of course, if you wish to mend my breaking heart, a simple exploding pen would go a long way-"

"Get out, Bond. And stop flirting with the interns; you're either scaring them senseless or giving them horrid crushes."

"I never knew you could be such a jealous man, Q. My heart is eternally yours, you know."

"You have thirty seconds before you become the new target for Explosives and Ammunition, 007."

"Darling, you must cut down on the innuendo at the workplace. It isn't good professional conduct, you know."

"Out, Bond!"

"Your wish is my command, my dear."

And so it went. The banter was startlingly excellent, the flirting was patently ridiculous, and Q, when he wasn't fantasizing about avenging his poor inventions or the shreds of his dignity (If he ever found who was responsible for the betting pool, _there would be blood_ ), began to almost enjoy when Bond came down to Q-Branch. Which was, roughly speaking, about every single day, with an apparent objective of driving Q insane, whether it was through getting into interns' pants, attempting to steal prototypes, or setting up shop in _Q's office,_ irregardless of Q's threats to send him into the field nothing but a glowstick and a piece of twine.

Q had tried not to read too much into that. Moneypenny, the evil woman, got him drunk. Twelve hours and a hangover later, Q did a mental re-drawing of lines not to cross around a certain Double-Oh agent.

The fragile balance of feelings versus duty versus sanity versus not killing Bond for eating up his entire budget was good; MI6 rebuilt itself, Mallory proved to be a surprisingly excellent boss, Q unofficially managed the Double-Oh Program, and they all tried to avoid the British Government.

Of course, Alec Trevelyan then fell off the face of the earth.

And Q's world went to hell.

* * *

The professional pyromaniac and the professional Casanova; a likelier friendship in all of history there probably never was.

No one seemed to know how Trevelyan and Bond first met, but as far as Q could tell, everyone agreed they had always been best friends from the start. Of course, they also seemed to perpetually bring out the worst in each other, much to the headache of everyone around them when they were forced off-duty.

Q's counterpart in MI5, as well as the London Section Chief, were both still convinced Bond and Trevelyan were dangerous anarchists with a strange and terrifying inclination for Dungeons & Dragons; the paperwork that month had been a _nightmare_ for Q, still a fledgling Quartermaster.

The unrelated fact that neither agent had gotten a hot shower, laid, or a single green light in all of England that month had made Q's reputation a terrifying, beautiful thing.

The entirety of the friendship between the two, though, boiled down to this useful truth for the rest of MI6: one made a good test for when to be worried when the other agent disappeared. Otherwise, there would be nearly a hundred more death certificates with the names James Bond and Aleksandr Trevelyan on them littering MI6.

So, when after Q lost all connections to Trevelyan while on a mission in Iceland, and Bond prowled into Q-Branch, a dangerous, cold look in his eyes, the hacker only gave him a short nod before barking out orders to his minions. _(That was what they liked to call themselves, anyway, his minions, and who was Q to argue_ _ _—_ )_

It took thirteen days, hacking China twice, an unholy alliance with the R&D Division of MI5, and an unsanctioned mission that left M at terrifying levels of rage, involving Bond, an exploding pen, and what was once a prototype for a lightsaber to get Trevelyan back.

The next mission Bond had after Trevelyan escaped Medical, he returned every last piece of his equipment, all whole, if slightly singed. Q was unsurprised, if gratified; after two months of wrangling agents, he knew well how hateful the idea of owing someone anything was to them. Taking a (Very, _very,_ slight) edge off his budget and blood pressure for the month was more than adequate re-payment, in Q's book.

Q was even less unsurprised when Bond's gun was ripped in half by some genetically modified monstrosity of carnivores three weeks later while undercover in Greece.

When 007 stopped losing his radio, though, even as the rate at which everything else was destroyed picked up at rates he hadn't thought possible, was when Q began to wonder if he might be in trouble.

* * *

When he found the identity of who kept moving him to his office cot when he fell asleep at his desk and leaving tea absolutely _everywhere_ and bringing take-out every few days and generally insisting on _taking care_ of him and his branch, Q _knew_ he was fucked.

* * *

It only took another three months before the cough began.

Just an itch in his chest and throat, at first, that Q could ignore, even as it developed into more and more violent coughing fits.

Two weeks later, as Q labored away over a miniature dart gun in the dead of night, he wound up into a five-minute coughing fit that left him dizzy, spots dancing in front of his eyes, and a blood-speckled floor.

In his hands were four pale, small, yellow daffodil petals.

As he let loose the Roombas on the floor to erase all evidence of his illness, upgraded on a slow day by Mechanics and Programming to handle bodily fluids with ease, Q was quick to work out the logistics of his case.

It wasn't particularly hard to figure out how long he would last, barring outside incident _ _—__ and there was _always_ outside incident in his job _ _—__ and anything that could alter the progression of his case.

For the first time in his life, Q was something resembling grateful with his experience with Hanahaki disease. Of being intimately familiar with the grief that came with it.

Bond may not have been in love with him _ _—__ the parade of "Bond Girls" through his missions and many, many, one-night stands off-duty proved that _ _—__ but Q counted him, along with several others as a solid friend. He would spare them the pain, spare himself the pitying glances and probing questions.

Selfish? Yes.

Practical? Even more so.

Eve Moneypenny figured it out in three days.

* * *

"You're not going to have the surgery." Moneypenny didn't phrase it as a question. She knew Q too well, and her knowing eyes were an excellent reminder that she had once been a candidate to gain the license to kill.

Q shook his head tiredly. "No."

"He doesn't know?"

He gave her a wan smile, not bothering to question how she knew. Bond had been his favorite agent almost from the start, and he had never tried very hard to disguise it. "No, and I don't intend to tell him."

Moneypenny was silent. Q took the opportunity to raise visuals on 007, who was currently staking out a safe house in Bulgaria for the terrorist he had been ordered to bring in. When he looked over his shoulder at Moneypenny, he had to fight the urge to take an involuntary step back. If looks were agents, hers was the entire Double-Oh roster: lethal overkill.

"What's your plan, then?" she asked, not taking her glare off of Bond.

"To carry on with my job until I ... until I can't. To train potential successors. To keep Trevelyan from burning down something too important."

Moneypenny snorted. "Good luck with that."

Q sat back down beside her, and took a sip of his tea. Neither said anything for a while, Q-Branch uncharacteristically silent.

Finally, Moneypenny asked the question Q knew had been coming since she'd walked into his office that morning, yanking him into a tight hug before lightly punching him, "for being a ridiculous moron with horrible taste in men."

"Do you want me to kill him?" she said carefully.

Q was answering before the last word before out of her mouth. "Much appreciated, Moneypants, but no."

Moneypenny looked away from a moment at the use of the old nickname; when she turned her face back to Q, he was shocked to see her eyes glimmering. "If you do die, I might kill him anyway."

Q's lips quirked. "I doubt M would appreciate it. Probably make you fill out paperwork."

"M can get another agent, and get fucked while he's at it, " Eve growled. "Bond's crossed a lot of lines in the past, but this is different, Q. You bloody well dare to go and die on me, and I won't miss my shot next time."

But before he could figure out a response to _that,_ Q's body was wracked by another coughing fit.

 _Yellow rose petals. How fitting._

* * *

Of course, right as he began to enact his grand plan of how to die a quiet valiant death, SPECTRE and Nine Eyes and, of course, _Doctor Madeleine Swann_ all happened, and Bond finally was given his happy ending as he walked off into the _—_ cliché, of course, what about the insufferable man wasn't? _—_ sunset.

Q told himself that this, by default, should have made him happy. The man he was pathetically in love with was able to live out his life in blissful peace. _(The fact that Q couldn't comprehend living in peace outside of MI6, already thought the two of them had found their own precious peace, was another matter entirely_ _—)_

He stopped lying to himself after Bond came back for the car, his blue eyes brighter than the Quartermaster had ever seen them, bright with love and the promise of a new life. _(Or brighter than Q had ever made them, anyway)_

Q rather fancied someone could have heard the last unbroken bit of his heart shatter beneath the leather shoes of James Bond as the agent walked away from him and MI6.

* * *

When he went home that night, Q spent half an hour vomiting yellow tulips and blood into the toilet.

* * *

Q had always hated the feeling of helplessness, of being forced into the role of a victim.

Yet, that was essentially where he was, what he had become. Implicitly rejected by Bond in favor of Madeleine Swann _—_ who, ironically enough, Q suspected he could have rather liked in different circumstances; anyone who deliberately stabbed Bond was with something wasn't half-bad in his book _—_ Q could not do anything but prepare, and wait as the roots crawled through his lungs, flower coming into full bloom at last; it had grown particularly difficult to breathe since the days after Bond had left, and the world just a little darker in the twilight world Q inhabited.

He certainly was not helpless, and most certainly never _moped_ , no matter what Moneypenny and 004 liked to imply.

Q began to formally train a pair of protégés _,_ Computer software prodigy Mikhaila and biochemical engineer Abdel, two longtime favorites of his _, and_ was marched to Medical twice a week under Moneypenny's watchful eye. He did his job as well as he ever had; though there was rather less leaving HQ and airplanes in Q's life, which he could really never complain about.

And Q waited.

He suffered through the pitying glances from Tanner when the older man came in one day to awkwardly quietly ask if there was anything he could do, an unrepentant Moneypenny on his tail, and weathered M's lecture,all in the same week. Q had remained blank-faced until the end of the last one, when his boss admitted, "I wish I could do something for you. I've seen family lost to Hanahaki."

Q had reached for the good brandy that night when he'd gone home, shepherded home by a concerned R, who, even though he had not been told, still knew something was wrong, and had begun to insist on Q keeping a somewhat normal work schedule; Q wished he could have been angry at this, wished he could have insisted upon maintaining his preferred lifestyle of all-nighters and caffeine and brilliant madness, wished he could have _fought._

But the godawful truth was, no matter how much caffeine he drank, no matter how many painkillers he downed every morning, now matter how much Q lived in denial, the disease was beginning to take its toll.

If he attempted to forgo sleep for longer than eighteen hours, the coughing fits became more frequent and more intense; Q no longer hacked up petals, or parts of flowers, but whole flowers, ever since the day Bond had left him _—_ left them all. Even Trevelyan had no clue where he'd gone off to with Doctor Swann, much to his startlingly genuine regret, and only knew he was still alive.

But Q knew that _he_ could have found Bond, if he had tried. Could have tracked him down, like no one else could.

Q never did, and M never asked him to. Never asked him about any of it, actually.

But after collapsing in the middle of walking 004 through downloading files from within one of the remaining branches of SPECTRE in an attempt to locate an escaped Oberhauser, M _did,_ with Medical's fervent approval, force him to delegate all physical duties of being Quartermaster, and to clock out with the civilian employees, much to Q's resigned horror.

The Roombas could no longer ever quite keep up with him, much to the horror of most who came through Q-Branch, and slight nausea of the interns. A spot of blood by his desk, a petal that hadn't quite made it into the trash littering the floor was a common sight.

His Hanahaki, much to his loathing, had also become the open secret of MI6. _Everyone_ knew, even if most didn't know who for.

The entire situation had become a scenario out of his worst adolescent nightmares, and almost the worst part of it all, the absolute most loathsome truth of it, was that they were _right._

He _was_ weakening, unwillingly pining away.

He _was_ going to die for unrequited love, like a heroine out of a blasted romance novel, willingly so.

But that certainly didn't mean Q had completely given up the last of his pride.

"But if you just _tell_ us-"

"No. The subject is closed, R. Besides, there's nothing to be done even if you did know."

R set his jaw. He had become increasingly stubborn as Q's Hanahaki had progressed; thankfully, he had been granted no additionally insight. _Yet._ "What if-"

"Can't I have at least _some_ dignity when I'm dying?" Q snapped.

"Sir, if we knew, perhaps we cou-"

"I would drop it if I were you, McCowen." Tanner said quietly. R took a good look at Tanner, and paled before closing his mouth.

Tanner turned to Q, mouth tightening at the edges as he inspected what Q had been seeing in the mirror for what seemed an eternity now: hollow cheekbones, dark circles under his eyes, and flushed forehead and cheeks, as if Q had the flu instead of Hanahaki. "Where are you going, Q?"

"I'm going hom-" Q began, but was forced to cut off, as another coughing fit racked his body. It was a particularly bad one, as he ended up on his knees, struggling for breath as he tried to take in a single breath _—_ a rather difficult task those days. Spots danced before his eyes as the familiar panic settled over him as suffocation ensued. Every time it seemed as if the fit would pass, it renewed, the flowers catching and tearing at Q's throat.

Finally, an indeterminate amount of time later, he was able to spit one last flower out, and no more coughing came. Q took a deep breath _—_ or as deep a breath as he was capable of, anyway. As he hauled himself to his feet, he inspected the bloody mess he had created.

Yellow carnations, Q recognized as he wiped the blood off of his hands. _How fitting._

R, mercifully, didn't say anything of it, only offering Q a glass of water, eyes darting to Tanner. "Home, as in your own flat, sir?"

"Contrary to popular belief," Q sniped, "I do not, in fact, live out of my office, living off of Indian and caffeine. I have two cats and a mortgage, and I would much appreciate if you would allow me to return to them."

"Do you want someone to drive you?" Tanner offered, his eyes on Q's hands, which were still shaking slightly.

"No, I'll be fine."

The worst of it, Q reflected, wasn't that everyone insisted on treating him as if he were made of glass, or sixteen all over again.

No, the worst part of it, he thought while driving, as his mouth twisted with equal parts regret and self-disgust, was that Hanahaki aside, he _really_ missed James Bond.

He'd certainly have stopped this Q-is-moping-over-a-man rot.

* * *

Q was in the middle of feeding Turing and Tolkien, his two Russian Blues, when his security system started screaming.

He had locked them in the bathroom and messaged MI6 by the time they managed to fully breach his flat.

To his delight, his flat defenses electrocuted one of his would-be kidnappers.

Nary a single shot was fired by the time Q felt the telltale prick of a needle in the back of his neck as he struggled while the tranquilizer did its work.

* * *

The first thing Q did when he woke up was to start coughing.

The second thing Q did, once his coughing fit ceased, was to look around and inspect the empty holding cell, and chair he was bound to, resolutely ignoring the crimson-spattered blue anemones at his feet.

The third thing he did, as he took in the lack of material available for him to work with, was to instinctively blame 007. Q found it to be a safe assumption with most things in life.

Q contemplated amending that to be _all_ things in life when Franz Oberhauser _—_ or Ernst Stavro Blofeld, or whatever Bond had claimed his real name was _—_ strode into the cell with a triumphant, insufferable smirk on his face, two gormless-looking cronies flanking him on either side.

"Hello, Quartermaster," Oberhauser said smoothly. "Have you had a terribly rough journey? I do apologize for any trouble I've caused you."

Q raised his eyebrows. From everything he had read about Oberhauser, charm _—_ or whatever _this_ was _—_ only served as a magician's distraction. Oberhauser was a genius sociopath with a taste for world domination and an unsettling fixation upon James Bond; niceties served only as a diversion. "Your releasing me would be an excellent apology."

Oberhauser gave a laugh that was far too smooth to ever be real. "You are funny, Quartermaster. I want to settle this in a civilized manner, so I will be forthright with you, and hopefully, you will be forthright, with me, hmm?"

Q didn't even bothering dignifying that with a response. Oberhauser chuckled as Q remained stoic before continuing. "It is simple, what I want from you. You tell me where James Bond is, and hand me a simple list of your MI6 colleagues, and I let you go free."

The words escaped Q's mouth before he could even comprehend his answer. "Not in hell, heaven, or earth, would I ever consider telling you where he is. Or who they are."

Q didn't believe in the concepts of heaven or hell _—_ even if he did, the implications would be rather unsettling, with what he's done _—_ but the sentiment remained the same.

Oberhauser shook his head and tutted. "My dear Q, I know you are dying. Loyalty and what you consider love can do strange things to all of us. Be rational here, and things will go much better for you."

And there it was. _Love._ The concept once again defined Q's life. The steady platonic love he held for Moneypenny and Tanner, the reluctant camaraderie with Trevelyan and the other agents, the rather scary paternal exasperation Mallory had for them all, his own protectiveness of R and his Q-Branch minions _—_ his lethal romantic love for Bond, loathe as he was to admit it sometimes.

Q had always rather liked explosions.

He would do his best, then, to make this an excellent one.

"If your brain so small that a simple two-letter word such as 'no' is beyond your comprehension? No wonder Bond defeated you so easily. My interns probably could have managed it without breaking a sweat; half of them can't even legally drive."

The charming veneer slid from Oberhauser's face. His features assumed a cruel, ruthless cast, and despite himself, Q felt a twinge of fear. Here was the man behind SPECTRE. Behind Silva and Skyfall. Behind the previous M's death.

Behind the death of Vesper Lynd and the breaking of the greatest agent MI6 had ever seen.

But here he was, threatening what was _Q's._

As his American counterparts in the Central Intelligence Agency were so fond of saying, _fuck that noise._

Oberhauser, most likely reading Q's resolve upon his face, simply nodded once a moment later. "Deal with him."

He turned on his heel and left the room in a rather melodramatic flourish, if Q did say so himself.

The two goons cracked identical dumb, violent grins; Q straightened his back. If he was going to die, at the very least it would be on something resembling his terms.

* * *

Q doesn't know if he ever screamed.

He imagined he did _—_ he's no Double-Oh agent, or even particularly quiet when he felt like it _—_ but he doesn't know for sure.

Q remembered the flowers, though. The white carnations. He remembered them choking him, as a loud, demanding voice rang through his head, demanding something Q wasn't even sure he knew of anymore, again and again.

But Q kept saying, as he began to taste chlorophyll along with his own blood, _"I don't know."_

The flower kept coming in every thicker waves, falling into his lap and off just as quickly, his body racked by the ever-constant hacking fits.

And the white carnations decorating the dark floor in his blurry vision began to turn a stark crimson red.

Q kept coughing up denial.

* * *

Q fell unconscious. At least, he was reasonably sure he had.

Because last he remembered it, he had been tortured by living men, not corpses with rather magnificent-looking headshots. Additionally, Q was certainly sure he would remember if James Bond had been in the room with him.

Particularly with _that_ expression on his face as he towered over what was left of Oberhauser's cronies, and looked at Q.

And Q had never, never seen that look on anyone's face before, and to see it etched upon Bond's features _—_

It was horrifying and awe-inspiring all at once.

Bond's expression was the devastation of a hundred civilizations, the raging grief of Achilles after the fall of Patroclus, the loss of the sun and light itself, all compressed into a single moment, containing the energy of a neutron star, inhuman and terrifying and beautiful all at once.

And to see it on one of the deadliest men on the planet was possibly the most terrifying thing Q knew he had ever seen, and he was down at least two pints of blood and functional ribs if the floor and his pain receptors was anything to go by.

The entire phenomenon was...enlightening. And confusing. But Q had suffered too much blood loss to bother with the finer details beyond labeling it that.

"Double...Oh... S-Seven," Q managed. "Wha..."

He couldn't quite get the words out of his mouth, as he tried to marshal his not inconsiderable brain power, which seemed to have decided a vacation right about then would be _excellent,_ but it seemed to have been made no difference anyway, as his apparent rescuer seemed transfixed by the floor.

"Q..." Bond whispered hoarsely. The cold whirling rage was fading from his bright, bright, blue eyes that Q had always been slightly entranced by, had always, perhaps, stared at for a bit too long, but that rage was quickly being replaced by no small amount of horror, along with _ _—_ sorrow?_

But _—_

Oh.

The carnations.

They were everywhere, at that point, coating the floor around Q almost completely. Some had even come attached with what looked almost like _roots_ and... other... stuff. _(There was a reason Q preferred technology, even if he couldn't quite remember then and there_ _ _—_ )_

He _knew._

There were only so many sources of bloodstained flowers in the room, and they certainly had not come from either of Oberhauser's goons.

Surprisingly, he felt no fear at this, no worry; there was only resignation. Bond opened his mouth, the obvious question on the tip of his tongue, even as he reached to free Q from the ties that bound him to the blood-soaked chair, when a familiar sound voiced the air.

And Q's glasses are long gone, but he would know Moneypenny's voice anywhere. Instinctively, some primal part of him relaxed at last, because he may have been irrevocably in love with James Bond, but it was Eve Moneypenny who had never hurt him, pushed him upwards to the sky, and who had held him together in the aftermath of Bond's departure.

She growled something at the medic beside her, the Walther Q had made her still pointed at the door. The nervous medic then rushed over to his side, visibly greying under the combined glares of Moneypenny and Bond.

A sickeningly familiar _prick_ pierced the side of Q's throat.

Q willingly embraced the darkness.

* * *

The next time Q woke up, it was to far less pain, a far more functional brain, and far too quiet James Bond in Medical.

"Bond," Q said shortly as the agent silently handed him a new pair of lenses, his face blank and unreadable. "Not to appear a bit ungrateful, but what, exactly, are you doing here?"

"Miss Moneypenny has kindly informed me that your current situation is my fault," Bond said quietly, his eyes looking anywhere but at Q.

Q looked at him steadily, before sighing. "And? You don't have to spare me, 007."

"Q, that's not _ _—__ "

"I'm not a twelve-year-old girl with her first crush _ _—__ "

 _"I_ __—"_ _

" _ _—__ and I've made my peace with it _—"_

 _"I haven't,"_ Bond finally snarled, coming alive with anger as he leaned towards Q, finally looking him in the eye. "I have not, Quartermaster. And I refuse to _ _—__ to make my peace with _your death."  
_

Bond spat the last two words out as if they were a repulsive curse, and despite himself, Q felt the faintest ember of hope ignite. "How terribly selfish of you, 007. Indeed, I beli _ _—__ ''

Q abruptly broke off as he began to cough violently, and felt the familiar sickening sensation of the flowers creeping up his windpipe. Distantly, he noticed the sensation of a firm hand on his back, helping him stay upright as he sought to regain control of his disease-wracked body.

Finally, Q was able to take more shallow breaths. He looked up at Bond defiantly as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, deliberately not looking at the blood spattered daffodils in his lap. Bond only looked for him at a long minute, his eyes filled with some unnameable emotion, before opening his mouth, no doubt to say _ _—__

"I love you."

 _Oh._

Bond said it quietly, and lacking the grandiose manner of most other declarations Q had witnessed, but it was one said with the weightiness of a vow.

Q's mind raced. "But _ _—__ Doctor Swann?"

Bond gave him a bitter smile. "She was. . . safe. An opportunity to retire with my life and limbs. Or so I thought. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. Swann was one of the new leaders of what was left of SPECTRE, and tried to poison my drink one evening. I brought her to MI6, and she pointed us in your and Oberhauser's direction."

"I believe _that,_ 007, if nothing else."

"But I do love you." Bond said plaintively.

"Then why did you leave?" Q demanded. At this, the Double-Oh stood up, running his fingers through his short hair.

"Because I bloody don't _do_ love, Q," Bond said frustratedly as he paced around Q's bed. "I seduce people, I make them believe I love them, and I kill them. And once in a while, I do trust. M _ _—__ Mansfield. Alec. Moneypenny, when she's not shooting me. You. Quite a bit of it you, actually."

The dark-haired boffin crossed his arms over his bloodstained shirt. "And?"

"And, apparently, I found out I do love where you are concerned. And I didn't know what to do."

Q raised his eyebrows incredulously. "Didn't know what to do?"

"Didn't know what to do," Bond repeated helplessly. "But believe me, I had no idea, Q about your. . . condition. You always seemed ready to shoot me yourself, regardless of how I declared my feelings _ _—__ "

"Declared your feelings?" Q sputtered. At this, he couldn't decide if he wanted a desk to smash his head against or some decent painkillers. "What do you think this is, an Austen novel? You came in three times a week _to_ _offer me blowjobs in my office."  
_

Bond only shrugged nonchalantly, a familiar, infuriating smirk playing on his face.

Once he broke out from Medical, he was signing Bond up for _all_ of the HR sessions, Q thought slightly hysterically. "Then, why did you leave with Doctor Swann?"

The agent, uncharacteristically, hesitated for along moment. "Swann _ _—__ Swann offered me a happy ending. I had considered myself lucky I hadn't gotten Hanahaki in the first place, and unburdened you of a Double-Oh past retirement age in the oricess. I thought it best, Q. For you, if not for me."

"That does not make this better!" he snapped, feeling rather dazed. Q felt as if his whole world had tilted off its axis; Oberhauser had not killed him, Bond had returned to MI6, and was apparently attempting to convince Q he loved him. _Bond,_ agent of a thousand lovers, loved the boffin quartermaster of MI6, and was looking at him as if he were a miracle.

Q wasn't sure if he wished he were better at not taking Bond at his word or not.

"Then what _will?"_ Bond pleaded. Or at least, Q thought incredulously, as close to pleading as James Bond would ever get outside of the bedroom. Q had never contemplated the possibility, of course.

"I spent months trailing after you like a lovesick puppy, Bond," Q said bitterly. "Then, you abandoned me _ _—__ you abandoned all of us. You can do as you please with the rest of your life, but please, I ask you, don't leave again."

"If you believe I am capable, after witnessing _ _—__ _that,_ of leaving you alone, Quartermaster, then you are a chronic moron," Bond declared softly as he sat back on the edge of Q's bed. He took Q's hands into his own.

"Q, I love you terribly, but I've been a great fool. Forgive me?"

Q quickly reached up, grabbed Bond's tie, and weakly pulled the agent to him. Bond, bless him, easily compensated for what Q was capable of as he more or less fell into Q's lap, and pressed his mouth to Q's.

The reports, Q happily found over the next few minutes, were woefully inadequate as to Bond's abilities as a kisser.

Q only rarely bothered to take the occasional deep breath.

At least, until Eve Moneypenny proved she was utter devilspawn sent to make Q's life a living hell, and prevent him from ever getting laid.

"Sorted everything out, then, boys?" Moneypenny said cheerily as she walked in. 006 sauntered behind in time to the click of her heels, snickering like a schoolboy as Q reddened and Bond gave the pair his best charming grin.

"Where have you been?" he asked, changing the subject. Bond did not help matters as he settled his arms around Q's waist.

"Having a personal chat with old Ernst. Had a few questions about you, mainly, Quartermaster," Trevelyan said cheerfully. It was then Q noted Trevelyan's reddened knuckles and uncharacteristically rumpled suit jacket with raised eyebrows.

"Yield anything?" Q asked carefully. He would have very much liked to know how Oberhauser has gotten past _his_ systems.

"Nothing we didn't already know. That reminds me: you go anywhere that kind of a stunt again, Jamesy, and I will personally shoot you in the dick with your own gun before ripping your lungs out through your throat," Trevelyan said, with all of the air of someone commenting on the weather.

"And then, it's my turn," Moneypenny purred as she batting her eyelashes at the agent with all the grace of a knife-thrower. Bond swallowed. Q debated whether it was worth attempting to save him; damn love was throwing his calculations out of balance. His brothers, Q remembered with a slight pang, had always loathed it when they had been at school.

He couldn't quite remember the last time they had spoken.

* * *

"Can you bring me one of my phones, then, Moneypants?"

"Why not Bond or Trevelyan?"

"I don't want to give either of them any more excuses to go near my prototypes than they already have."

"Q, I thought we were friends!"

"I'm heartbroken, darling, I truly am."

"My condolences, Bond. Q, you are aware phone calls are _in_ my job description, correct?"

"We both know you foist them off on HR and interns, and this one is something I've been putting off. Please?"

"Oh, fine. Bond, this is your mission, should you choose to accept it."

"Don't you dare stoop to Hunt and his riffraff's level, Moneypenny. We're better than that."

* * *

Q eventually had his phone smuggled down to Medical. Eventually.

* * *

 _"Hello, Mycroft."_

 _"Daedalus."_

* * *

 **A/N:** I have absolutely no excuse for this. None. I'm not even sure what, exactly, the fuck this is, but I love this trope to death and will probably write more in the future with those whom I love to torture (More commonly known as my various 'ships.). Cheers!

Flower Meanings:

 _Yellow Daffodil:_ Means new love, rebirth; a single flower tells of future misfortune.

 _Hyacinth:_ Means sorrow, regret.

 _White Carnation:_ Pure love, symbolizes loyalty.

 _Yellow Roses:_ Undying love, deep friendship.

 _Yellow Tulip:_ Love without limit or logic, that will continue even if it is not reciprocated.

 _Yellow Carnations:_ Rejection.

 _Blue Anemone:_ Forsaken or forgotten love, protection from evil.


End file.
